Saturday, August 9, 2008

(CNN) -- Federal officials have opened a civil rights investigation into a police narcotics raid on the home of a Maryland mayor in which police burst in without knocking and shot the mayor's two dogs to death.

Mayor Cheye Calvo of Berwyn Heights, Maryland, and his mother-in-law were handcuffed and forced to kneel on the floor during the July 29 raid, which police said was part of an investigation into a scheme in which drugs apparently were sent to unsuspecting people.

Prince George's County police, who were in charge of the raid, issued a statement Friday clearing the couple of involvement and expressing "regret."

The FBI and the U.S. attorney's office in Maryland are investigating the incident, FBI spokesman Richard Wolf said Friday.

Calvo had asked for the federal investigation.

"We lost our family dogs," he said Thursday. "We did it at the hands of sheriff's deputies who burst through our front door, rifles blazing."